"So, how are you?" Trent asked. He was sitting in the round purple belly of a Phantom dropship with Enzo and the other survivors. They had gained access to the Cartographer and were presently making their way to the Control Room, which appeared to be located atop a mountain in a vast desert. More Elites and a couple of squads of Yellowjackets were on their way to bulk up Enzo's forces since preliminary scans showed that something was already waiting for them in the area. They couldn't exactly figure out what, unfortunately.
"I'm very tired," Enzo replied, then grinned. Trent took a pull on his Yeheyuan and blew a smoke ring. "Other than that, I am quite pleased. It's very good to see you once more, especially after living with the knowledge that you were likely dead."
"Likely?" Trent replied.
"Most of us never actually gave up hope. We just got called away on business," Cann said.
"Yes. I was...most uncooperative when the call came," Enzo said quietly.
Cann chuckled. "If Childs had been there in person, I think Enzo might've broke his neck."
"Wow," Trent said.
Enzo shrugged uncomfortable. "You are important to me," he said simply.
"You're important to me, too, Enzo...shit, hold on, Childs is calling." Trent activated his comms unit. "Yeah? What's happening?"
"Is that any way to respond to your commanding officer?"
"It is when you're my level of awesome."
Childs sighed heavily. "I've got more forces moving on the Control Room. A trio of ODST squads will be joining you. I'm not entirely sure what the hell is down there, but there are a lot of them. I'm also rerouting a couple squads of Marines who are nearby."
"Where are the other Survivors? You find them yet?"
"Jorge and Linda are out scouting Black Ops, infiltrating one of their big outposts. Nauls and Melissa have been rerouted to the Cartographer to see what Nauls can dig up out of it and see if he can figure out anything more about what the hell Black Ops wants here. Once you have control of the Control Room, they'll head there. Jared is...off doing his own thing."
"All right, sounds good. I'll radio you when we have control."
"You'd better." Childs cut the link.
Trent sighed. "That guy is an asshole."
"I think you disappearing kind of soured him for a while. It was really inconvenient," Cann replied.
"We are nearing the drop point," Enzo said. Trent got up and moved into the cockpit. He stared out at the hundreds of miles of desert wasteland and looked ahead to the Control Room. It was then he thought something was wrong with his eyes. Because what he was seeing surely couldn't be correct. The entire area around the mountain, and the mountain itself, seemed to be writhing, as though covered by an army of living things...
"Oh shit," he muttered. He patched into the general comms. "Everyone get ready for a hard fight! We've got Bugs down there!" Even as he said it, a swarm of things broke away from the area and began to move towards them like a black cloud.
Trent moved back into the main hold.
"We should be able to just fly to the mountaintop and bypass all this shit," he said. "Providing our luck holds out. Which, of course, shouldn't be a-" The Phantom lurched sickeningly to one side. Trent shouted in surprise as he was thrown to the floor.
"What the hell's going on!?" Cann snapped.
"I imagine giant bees and wasps and probably other flying things are crashing into us right now," Trent replied.
The Phantom leveled out again and Trent could hear the staccato of triple plasma cannons firing. The Survivors waited impatiently as the Phantom pressed on. Twice more it was smashed into and sent lurching violently to one side. After the second time, Trent noticed a slight decrease of power and elevation.
"Aw, crap," he muttered. They were smashed into abruptly again and this time the Phantom lost power completely. For several seconds, they were in free fall. Then everything came to an immediate and painful halt as they crashed into the sand. Trent rose to his feet as quickly as he could. He snagged his SAW and battle rifle and spied Enzo tearing a plasma turret from its moorings. The big Elite walked over to the side door and kicked it open.
"Holy shit, when did Enzo get all Terminator?" Cann asked.
Abruptly, there was no more time for talking as Enzo started firing out of the open door. Already, Trent could see Bugs trying to get in. He hurried over and joined Enzo at the breach, firing into an immense crowd of writhing, giant insects. The others joined them. For nearly two minutes straight, it was nothing but blowing away wave after wave of giant bugs. Trent was glad he'd managed to restock his ammo before leaving the Cartographer.
When the insects had finally gotten the message and given them a bit of room, Trent and the others headed out. Their ship had crashed on a small mound of sand that gave them a good view of the immediate area. They were a couple of dozen meters short of base of the mountain. Overhead, the Pelicans and Phantoms that had survived the areal battle were doing strafing runs. ODST pods shrieked down from the bleached skies.
In between them and their goal was an army of giant bugs: ants, spiders, scorpions, beetles, termites, centipedes...the list went on.
"Good Christ..." Cann whispered.
"All right, listen up. It looks like there's two ways up. Enzo, I want you, Cann and Kiza to break to the right, link up with those ODSTs and start making for the apex. Blake, you're with me. We're going to head for those Yellowjackets to the left."
There were a string of affirmative responses. The Survivors broke away from the mound, charging down into the haze of bloody chaos. Trent sighted a black widow coming his way, suppressed a shiver and let the monster have it. He emptied half a magazine into its hideous face and as it collapsed to the ground, turned the barrage of bullets onto an encroaching ant. One of its antenna flew off in a spray of blood, then a portion of its head collapsed under the pressure of the bullets. It fell to the ground, only to make way for huge black beetle.
Trent began rapidly reloading, unsure if he had enough time to do so. He looked around. Blake was helping a handful of Marines. He finished reloading, brought the gun up to the beetle and then leaped back as it abruptly crashed to the ground. The action coincided with the distinct sound of a sniper rifle being fired. Trent glanced beyond the huge armored corpse and saw one of the Yellowjackets up ahead turning his rifle to fire on another target.
"All right, Blake! Rally those Marines and let's haul ass!" Trent shouted.
It was time for another hard run. Trent linked up with Blake and a half dozen bloodied men in green Ballistics armor and began punching a hole through the writhing horde of titanic bugs. They made decent time, fighting through the sun and the scalding sunshine. By the time Trent reached the Yellowjackets at the base of the mountain, he'd depleted his SAW. He abandoned it in favor of his battle rifle and a shotgun he'd pulled off a dead Marine.
"You're with me!" he called to the Yellowjacket squad. There were five of them left and there was a brief lull in battle. "I'm with ONI and we need to take the top of the mountain!"
"Affirmative!" one of them called back. "Let's get to it, boys and girls!"
They hit the ramp and began pushing up it. Trent raised his shotgun and blew one of the legs off a giant tarantula blocking their way. It howled in alien fury, then took a barrage of red hot lead, stumbled and crashed off the path. Trent glanced up. A series of ramps and platforms had been cut into the side of the mountain, providing a path to the top. He checked in with Enzo and the others as he led Blake, the Yellowjackets and the few Marines left alive up the side of the mountain.
"How's it going on your end?"
"Good. We're making swift progress through the horde, cutting a bloody swath through them!" Enzo replied, obviously enamored with the thrill of combat and the blood of fallen enemies.
"Excellent. Keep it up. We're making our way up the side of the mountain," Trent replied.
"Keep at it, blood brother!"
They fought a brutal and bloody battle up the ramps, punching their way through hordes of the huge insects. By the time they reached the apex, the Marines had died and Trent's armor was splattered with blood and gore. Atop the mountain was a metal plateau wreathed in sand. It was curiously void of enemies. Trent glanced around as he reloaded. Blake and three of the Yellowjackets were still with him. He spied Enzo, Kiza and Cann leading nearly a dozen ODSTs up from the other side. They regrouped in the middle.
"Enzo, Kiza, Cann, Blake, you're all with me. Everyone else, stand out here and secure the perimeter. Nothing gets in behind us, got it?" Trent asked.
There were a string of affirmative replies. With that, Trent led the others towards a huge door built right into the mountaintop. Enzo opened it up with a few commands on the light pad. The titanic silver doors slowly disappeared into the mountain, opening up a broad, tall tunnel of auburn metal and ambient light. There was nobody and nothing within. They made their way down the passageway, feeling that familiar tension mount.
Trent initiated the door at the other end and watched it open almost soundlessly. He stared grimly into the room beyond. Waiting for them was a huge room, gigantic, lit by the neon glow of Forerunner holographic technology. A glass and metal walkway extended away from them, eventually coming to a circular walkway of similar design. Where the walkways met was a light-pad and, standing in front of the light-pad was...
"Holy shit..." Trent whispered.
"Who the hell is that?" Cann asked quietly.
"It never occurred to me until now...I was the one to kidnap him, I was the one to hand him over to Black Ops...back when they were still the good guys, or at least hiding it well enough...guys, we are in for a serious fight."
"Who is he?" Cann growled.
"His name is Jason Voorhees."
He stood nearly seven feet tall, wrapped in bloody tatters and still wearing his battered old hockey mask. Trent could see some modifications to his head. Curious technology poked out of his skull. He was still carrying his machete, old and bloodstained.
"But he's just a guy," Blake murmured. "Granted, he's a big guy with a...what is that? Is that a sword?"
"Machete," Trent murmured.
"Yeah, a machete. But we've got freaking machine guns and grenades. I mean, what, this is their big bad guard dog?" Trent sighed.
"Here, watch this." He raised his battle rifle, aimed and fired, putting a three-round burst into Jason's neck. There was a spray of blood, and Jason took a step back, but then regained his footing and continued staring at them with malignant crimson eyes.
"Well...shit," Blake murmured.
"What do we do?" Cann asked. Jason began walking towards them silently, his strides long but his pace calm.
"Shoot the shit out of him, I guess," Trent replied.
They all raised their weapons and opened fire. Jason began to vibrate as a hail of bullets peppered him, creating dozens of small bursts of blood. He kept walking, then slowed, then staggered at one point. But as they ran out of bullets and hastily began reloading, he was still standing, still coming for them.
"I see your point," Enzo said quietly.
Then Jason was upon them. Cann moved swiftly forward and bashed him right in the hockey mask with the butt of his rifle. Jason punched him in the chest and sent him flying backwards. He turned to Blake and before anyone could move to stop him, he jabbed the machete hilt deep into Blake's gut. It exploded out of his back.
"Blake!" Trent heard himself scream. He ran forward and shot Jason in the head with his shotgun. The force of the blast tore away some of Jason's skull and physically pushed him flat onto his back, taking his machete with him. Blake collapsed to the floor without a sound. Trent prepared for another blast, but Enzo rushed past him with an energy sword and decapitated Jason. He worked quickly and silently, cutting off each of the limbs and kicking the over the side of the catwalk to the floor hundreds of feet below.
He finished by cutting the chest in half and sending it and the decapitated head over the edge as well, then immediately began calling for a medical evacuation. Trent opened up his medkit, working quickly, trying to at least get the wound sealed.
"Don't worry," he heard himself whispering. "I'm not going to lose you, Blake. I'm not going to lose you. We'll make it..."